This North American native is easy to miss, despite its bright coloring.

Identification: Fruiting bodies are usually separate (no common
base), cylindrical but sometimes thicker near the top, sometimes partially flattened or twisted, with
tips that are usually rounded. They are yellow-orange to orange, and ¾-1¾" (2-5 cm) tall ×
¹/₃₂-⅛" (1.5-3 mm) in diameter. They taste mild. They appear under hardwoods or conifers.

Occurs in dense clusters with a common base, reaching a height of 1¾-6" (5-15 cm). Thin yellow (or pale yellow or cream) fruiting bodies become tipped with brown with age. Tastes bitter. Found under hardwoods or conifers.

Fruiting bodies are usually separate (no common base), cylindrical but sometimes thicker near the top, sometimes partially flattened or twisted, with tips that are usually rounded. They are yellow-orange to orange. They taste mild. They are relatively short, ¾-1¾" (2-5 cm) tall × ¹/₃₂-⅛" (1.5-3 mm) in diameter. Found under hardwoods or conifers.

Fruiting bodies up to 5" (12 cm) tall. Yellow, sometimes orange. They appear on areas of dead oak and other hardwoods that lack bark. Fungus tips branch into a distinctive Y shape.

Roughly 75 people in North America are poisoned each year by mushrooms, often from eating a poisonous species that resembles an edible species. Though deaths are rare, there is no cure short of a liver transplant for severe poisoning. Don’t eat any mushroom unless you are absolutely certain of its identity! Please don’t trust the identifications on this site. We aren’t mushroom experts and we haven’t focused on safely identifying edible species.